The Christmas Trousers

Author unknown, supposedly a true story

Roy Collette and his brother-in-law have been exchanging the same pair of pants as a Christmas
present for 11 years -- and each time the package gets harder to open. This year the pants came wrapped
in a car mashed into a 3-foot cube.

The trousers are in the glove compartment of a 1974 Gremlin. Now Collette's plotting his revenge --
if he can get them out. It all started when Collette received a pair of moleskin trousers from his
brother-in-law, Larry Kunkel of Bensenville, Ill. Kunkel's mother had given her son the britches when he
was a college student. He wore them a few times, but they froze stiff in cold weather and he didn't
like them. So he gave them to Collette.

Collette, who called the moleskins "miserable", wore them three times, then wrapped them up
and gave them back to Kunkel for Christmas the next year. The friendly exchange continued routinely
until Collette twisted the pants tightly, stuffed them into a 3-foot-long, 1-inch wide tube and gave
them back to Kunkel.

The next Christmas, Kunkel compressed the pants into a 7-inch square,
wrapped them with wire and gave the "bale" to Collette. Not to be outdone, the next year
Collette put the pants into a 2-foot-square crate filled with stones, nailed it shut, banded it with
steel and gave the trusty trousers back to Kunkel.

The brothers agreed to end the caper if the trousers were damaged. But they were as careful as they
were clever.

Kunkel had the pants mounted inside an insulated window that had a 20-year guarantee and shipped them
off to Collette.

Collette broke the glass, recovered the trousers, stuffed them into a 5-inch coffee can and soldered
it shut. The can was put in a 5-gallon container filled with concrete and reinforcing rods and given to
Kunkel the following Christmas.

Two years ago, Kunkel installed the pants in a 225-pound homemade steel ashtray made from 8-inch
steel casings and etched Collette's name on the side. Collette had trouble retrieving the treasured
trousers, but succeeded without burning them with a cutting torch.

Last Christmas, Collette found a 600-pound safe and hauled it to Viracon Inc. in Owatonna, where the
shipping department decorated it with red and green stripes, put the pants inside and welded the safe
shut. The safe was then shipped to Kunkel, who is the plant manager for Viracon's outlet in Bensenville.

A few weeks ago, the pants were trucked to Owatonna, 55 miles south of Minneapolis, in a drab green,
3-foot cube that once was a car with 95,000 miles on it. A note attached to the 2,000-pound scrunched
car advised Collette that the pants were inside the glove compartment. "This will take some
planning," Collette said. "I will definitely get them out. I'm confident." But he's
waiting until January to think about how to recover the bothersome britches.